How to create a great website, pt 2: Gathering teamTõnuApr 23, 2009

Websites are built up from a number of different bricks. By the end of
the day you'll need design, content (texts and pictures), promotion and
some technical things like a website address, hosting and system for
managing content. Most of all you need to get it done. You need
decisions not discussions.

Don't gather a large team just to wash off your responsibility. Don't waste time writing content for weeks and designing for months.

Build your site quickly rather than seek perfection. In this time
sensitive world, there's no need to polish every detail. Just get it
done already! Publish your site in one day even if it's still small and imperfect. Therefore your site starts serving visitors on a daily basis. You get into the business one day at time.
Decide alone. Don't wait for anyone to miraculously appear
with better decisions from the sky. Don't distract your clear thinking
with doubts because people never agree with each other anyways.

Recruit only the best to give you solid advice, but do not share
decision making with them. Democracy sucks in web creation. Great
advisers are another story. Listen to them to get your basics right. And
then shoot. Do it. Move on.

Should I grab a ready-made design or hire a designer?

Design is, classically, a luxury item. People die of heart
attacks when an invoice from the design agency arrives. The market has
gone through a major diversification. No longer is there a need to have
the choice "to have a design or not to have". You can always have a
great design. Prices range from completely free designs (templates) to
super expensive works built exclusively for you by industry's best web
creators.

The question is therefore only about the size of your budget. Most of us have a limited budget, but we still want to have a unique
design for our sites. If one really can't stand having a standard
template and your budget really is low, there might still be a chance.
There's a golden middle way -- hire a freelancer who is good at both
design and coding. Let them individualize a free template for your site.
Should be a half day's work.

Who should do the writing?

You can't have content downloaded from content stock for free. That is the hard part -- you need to write the text yourself or hire
someone to do it. Good news is that simple, short, to-the-point texts
work best. So most of us can get it done well enough. Don't forget the
pictures! Pictures of your team, products, office or anything else
illustrating your message.

What to do with the technical stuff?

Binding the design with content while launching it as your website used
to require a lot of assistance from IT guys. Domain names, hosting, PHP,
CMS and other creepy acronyms.

Now, this has become the easy part. There is no need for getting your hands greasy anymore. You can build your site by yourself with different website building
services. No need to distract your neighbour's 10-year old IT guy
of-a-son. Build it yourself, it's rather simple. If you have a custom
design, let the designer integrate it with that service.

Promotion

Question about how to man the promotional boat to carry your newborn website is more about general business philosophy than about building a great website.

To cut it short -- study the basics of online marketing. Need for it
comes along with every website that wants to live. Study how to get
better position in Google's search results, how to analyze your traffic,
how to spread the word and how + when to advertise. And then either
pick yourself up by the bootstraps and do the work yourself or if it
really isn't your cup of tea, find someone to do it. A website likely
will become a failure without promoting it properly.

Other stories on creating a great website:

Replies to this post

The Baldchemist Apr 26

Nice one and good luck! One other thing dont give the punter what they think they want because often they dont know, which is why they came to you in the first place... for your expertise.
So right about committees.. i never saw a statue celebrating a committee.
The Baldchemist

Tõnu Apr 27

True -- I don't know any committee-memorial either.

Bharathi Baskar.B Dec 01

Thanks for your valuable posting, it was very informative.Am working in Erp Software Company In India